We break down the ins and outs of the Surface Pro X (The Daily Charge, 11/5/2019)

Today we're breaking down the Microsoft Surface Pro X. Are hybrids a way of the future? We'll find out, stay tuned for your Daily Charge. [MUSIC] Welcome to the Daily Charge. Remember, remember, the 5th of November, I'm Roger Cheng. I'm Alfred Ng. And here are today's top stories. [SOUND] [MUSIC] Is the Surface Pro X worth your time or own Dan Ackman breaks down this laptop tablet hybrid? Unlike Microsoft Surface Pro seven laptop Surface Pro X runs on a different processors, some of the ones that run smartphones so it's supposed to have better, better, better battery life. Go to sleep and wake up in a flash and include 4G conductivity. But just like those other Surface devices, Microsoft still makes you pay for accessories like the keyboard cover, and the redesign stylist. The Surface Pro X by itself is $1,000 but you need $139 for the keyboard and $144 for that redesign pen [UNKNOWN] What do you think? Why do they keep doing this? This doesn't make any sense to charge that much for that keyboard. It makes perfect sense. If you're Microsoft and you want money. Every time they show off the surface, like any of their devices, it's always with the keyboard. yeah. It's never just like, yeah, you can use this as a standalone tablet and it's great. It's like yeah, it's also a convertible that you can use with the keyboard and they keep adding it on as like. Yeah. By the way, it's like an extra $200. You can buy a new Chrome Book for that price. Right. It just, I hate it so much. I hate that they do this. It ruins their products, for me. Where it seems cool and it looks cool, but from our Review, it looks like a great device, but I would never like accept that up charge like and the pen too. Are you kidding me? Yeah, it's it's actually headed for $4 is more than the standard $99 for surface pencil. This specific pen that was designed for For this Surface Pro X is actually more expensive, almost 50% more expensive And it's not like backwards compatible, right like I have a previous Surface I can't take that keyboard and put it on this, right? No, that's that thing because of the slide size difference like you need to get specific keyboard for this Surface Pro X. What a scam, because you know what's going to happen, you're going to spend like the extra like $300 on this And then, they're going to come out like another laptop next year is like. Geez to be fair, if they assuming like, if you look at the Surface Pro on the standard Surface Pro line the keyboards do are backwards compatible for those. Because the Pro X is a slightly different version that's kind of a you know, it's like the cell phone or the Snapdragon processor base version. It needed to be redesign I think, so theoretically, if you will commit this line like if you bought the next upgrade over, you will be able to take that keeper with up with you. It is such a scam, it's just why would any why like trust the company or buy into something like this when you know like they are not including it, they bought- Let's be fair, college scams are little bit of the [UNKNOWN] it's right up for it right there all the side. And Microsoft isn't the only one doing this right? Apple does this with the iPad Pro, right? They show off the lovely keyboard and the pencil. Those are all extra accessories. They should just come with it. It's such a racket. Alright moving on to Facebook. Our own Megan Walton has a unique review on the Facebook pro TV. She threw out the nuts and bolts of the standard review Basically just said stay away from this thing, based on the fact that Facebook has just got so much other drama going on between concerns about how it handles our personal information to, you know, its decision to run political ads. As it's lies there's just a lot of issues here and so she's flat out saying don't buy this thing I really loved it because we i really think we should be doing more reviews like this Yeah Because i think that when we write reviews on a product itself and not the company around it. Is very much like one of those things or it's like, well, other than that, how is the play Mrs. Lincoln. Where there's so much going on ->> well, let's that's a little dramatic. I mean, it's fascinating. I figured there is this increasing trend where you're not just buying product based on the merits of the product, you do have to look at what the company is, the context around How this company is behaving and in this particular case, you know, Facebook, there's just so many problems there. Yeah, and my point is, I think we should be doing that for every company that we write reviews on. I mean, you know, I appreciate Appreciate a lot more that when like whenever we write a review on the Ring product now, it comes with Coviot with like all the police partnerships that they have. But we could take it a step forward, we can, you know ad in things about you know if you're going to have an amazon prime membership by the way, their delivery trucks have been killing people because of the demand for one day delivery. Yeah, context is extremely important around consumerism, and our review of the Portal TV was a great example of that. Yeah look, I think there's a fine line here, and with the Facebook thing, I think Megan sort of made the call. To be fair, she does note that the Facebook Portal TV does work fine, in case you were interested in how it actually worked. Snaps into your TV, turns into a giant portal which. I kinda question was whether I even would want as just a product by itself but, and it also tries to be a streamer but it's limited key service. Yeah Of Netflix. I imagine this is one of those things that like, old people will love where it's like I can talk to myself. On the TV now and that isn't Isn't that great? So, I really do think this is one of those things that like somebody is going to get for their parents and will not be reading this review or care that much about like privacy. Yeah,that's true, some folks are gonna worry about all the stuff is the product Helps them don't go the product. Yeah. All right last Alfred you had a story on to Chinese surveillance companies and how so much fear they may be using CS to scrub their image clean break down for us, what's this all about? Yeah, so there's two Chinese surveillance companies called one called I flight tech, the other one called easy vis which is a subsidiary of heat vision. If you're not familiar with these companies they are- No one is, let's face it. Heat vision is actually the number one provider of surviellence cameras in the world. Including having million dollar deals with the Chinese government to put surviellence cameras in mosks and their muslim detention camps in Jin-Jang. So they have a subsidiary called easy viz. They're based in California, where they make smart door bells like consumer friendly products. They have a doorbell that has facial recognition and creates databases of people that show up to your door. So they are both going to be at CES. I fly tech is the top provider voice recognition in China. Well, they're both listed as a tendency. I don't actually know if they will be going to see us. Yeah. So they're they're listed as attendees but they have attended in previous years where CES has given them Innovation Awards. Right, so let's bring it back though the reason why we're talking about these companies is because the Commerce Department put them on an empty list, basically a blacklist for human rights violations, right? Yeah, so they have contributed a lot of surveillance technology for the Chinese government specifically for spying on Muslims in China. And that's why they were blacklisted for human rights violations and the concern is when they're at CES they'll be given this like friendly image of hey. Yeah You know, we make this cool translator device or we make these cool video doorbells. Nothing wrong going on with us in China. We're not doing anything bad there. Right which is what they've taken the approach as you know, they after they won the CS Award, they they talked to Chinese media, saying We have this global platform now, we are a consumer friendly company. And the big concern is that they're using CES to basically give them this clean cut friendly image. When there are a lot of government officials talking about how problematic they are. They There's talks of banning them in the UK as well. Mm-hm. And the Australian government has also discussed basically not allowing them to have their technology in their country either. Right, so we're still a few months, two months away? Yeah. Two months away from CS. So we'll see if the CTA does anything about it in the meantime. For the Daily Charge, I'm Roger Cheng. I'm Alfred Ng. Thanks for joining us. [MUSIC] Can't get enough? Check out the Daily Supercharge, our extended post show with special features, audience Q&A, and in depth reviews. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts.